


Sharpen This Feeling

by shinealightrose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 07:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4383188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/shinealightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luhan is ready to go out and see the world; Minseok just wants to live in one place for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharpen This Feeling

Plenty of people move around all their lives. They live in one spot and the next year they move, and another family moves into the house and several years later they move. Friends are made in the playground in elementary school and become distant memories by middle school, Luhan goes through several best friends during the course of his high school years, and none of them are around by the time he hits college.

It's the way of the world and Luhan is used to it. He's the one constant in his own little world, the only person who can say with certainty that he's never going anywhere. At eighteen years old he lives in the same house his parents first brought him home to when he was a baby, and he's seen the neighborhood change and the people change, and only he stays the same, if just a little older each year. As if he truly is the center of the universe but all he can do is watch as it passes him by.

He stops being depressed by it, and with each friend that he makes and says goodbye too, he learns to accept it. To be happy for the restless movers of the world whose lives would be stifled by the burden of one, solitary place. 

“It's fun to move around!” said his last best friend. Luhan had cornered Kris in the last month of summer break before both were to start college. “You get to see new places, experience new places. Meet all kinds of people. It's kind of refreshing, getting to start all over again. Keeps life from getting stale.” Kris had lived there for approximately three years and while his family had decided to settle, he was ready to move on. He applied and was accepted to a college on the other side of the country, while Luhan hadn't even considered not applying to the local university.

Perhaps one day it will be his turn to leave, but he hasn't felt like it yet.

He meets Minseok in the library of his freshman year. Minseok is small and clumsy, and his study books are scattered across an entire table that could seat four students and their materials comfortably. It's the last table available though and Luhan needs a corner to perch on. He's got a fill-in study guide to cram before his afternoon history class and subsequent quiz. 

“Excuse me, but can I just sit here on the end?” he asks politely.

Minseok - though he doesn't know his name yet - looks up scared, and through hooded, stressed and sleepless, red-rimmed eyes he nods hurriedly, and then goes back to his notes. Luhan learns his name and the few barest facts about him only through hard-won attempts at socialization over the next few weeks, one question every other trip to the library where he slowly starts carving out a place for himself on the corner of Minseok's table.

Minseok is his age, and he just moved here for school. He lives alone and has no friends and no family worth speaking of - Luhan concludes that he's estranged - and he's extremely covetous of his self-assigned library study table. He claims he can't study in his dorm room because of his roommates constantly coming in and out and dragging their friends and girlfriends around at random times of the day. Luhan feels a little sorry for him, because Minseok's foolishly taking eighteen hours of course work and has barely any time to breathe. 

“Oh,” he apologizes one day when Luhan can't quite fit his book bag onto the table amidst all of Minseok's things. “I'm sorry. I just... kind of like pretending that this table is mine and it'll always be here. Sorry, I can move some of this stuff though. Here...” He gives Luhan another foot of table space and Luhan thinks he's won a major victory.

“Perhaps you should slow down next semester?” he suggests to him one day. “Not take so many classes? So you can just chill out and schedule in some regular downtime?”

Minseok pauses in his work and smiles wistfully. “Yeah, maybe I should do that.” He signs up for only seventeen hours in the spring and keeps a claim on his study table like his life depends on it.

Spring break sneaks up on Luhan, and one Monday morning he's being woken up by the sight of another old friend returned for the holidays. “I came to visit my grandma! I can't believe you still live in this place. I thought surely you'd be gone by now,” Jongdae tells him while Luhan still wipes the sleep from his eyes. He hasn't seen Jongdae since they were kids in the eighth grade, and truthfully he hasn't even thought about the guy in years. 

“Wow, where do you even live now?” Luhan exclaims and is then treated to a year by year account of Jongdae's life adventures. He'd moved overseas with his parents three times in high school, graduated early, applied to a stateside university and immediately got himself set up as an exchange student abroad. 

“But now I'm bored of that, so at the end of this semester I'm going to transfer back here, live with grams for a while and see how it goes.” Jongdae always did live life in the fast lane. In eighth grade though Luhan just thought that applied to skateboards. 

“So, does that mean I'll be seeing you around for longer?” Luhan anticipates having another friend around the place. 

“Yeah, or until I get bored with this neighborhood again.” Jongdae winks. “But enough of the future. What are you doing this week?” 

By the time Luhan returns to school the following Monday he hasn't done any of his assignments and looks worse even than Minseok while he cram-writes a three-page essay two hours before it's due. Minseok slides him an extra coffee and doesn't even inquire what Luhan did over the break. The habit they've developed for the hours they spend studying silently side-by-side is comforting. 

It takes a full year before Luhan manages to see Minseok somewhere that is not the library. They meet once during finals week of the end of the semester in a local student-filled sandwich shop which also happens to serve good coffee. Luhan accidentally scoped the place out one morning and realized this is where Minseok has been getting his usual dose of caffeine, and from which sometimes he gets an extra one to share.

“Are you done with finals yet?” Luhan asks once Minseok gets over his surprise at seeing Luhan outside of the library.

“Oh, not quite. One more test, but it's not until tomorrow. Are... you eating lunch here?”

“Yep,” says Luhan happily. He invites his study partner to sit across from him, relishing in the fact that for once he can see Minseok without the hindrance of his backpack and millions of books. “So, are you going home for the summer holidays?”

Minseok smiles glumly and starts to answer, occasionally biting his own bottom lip while he talks, as if casually mulling over which words to use. “No. I don't really have any place to return to. I mean, I guess there is a place but I'm not really welcome at home, and I don't want to go anyways. I'm kind of looking forward to staying here and not traveling. I'll have my room to myself too for once. My roommates are all going somewhere.”

It's the most Minseok has ever talked about himself. Luhan's counter-smile comes unbidden as he realizes he can't really take his eyes off the boy. In the year since he's known him, Minseok has grown ever softer around the eyes, and he smiles more often, and even in the middle of finals week he looks more rested and happy. It's a far cry from when he first met him and Minseok was a prickly ball of energy ready to combust if you just poked him the wrong way. Not that Luhan had tried to. Or wanted to.

“Have you signed up for next year's classes?” he asks.

“Yes. But I'm only taking fifteen hours,” Minseok replies delightedly.

“Good! I'm glad.” Luhan smiles and smiles until he realizes Minseok is looking at him funny, and he stops, afraid that perhaps he might be scaring him too much in one day. “That's good,” he repeats. “Well, I hope you get to enjoy your summer holiday. You're really not going anywhere?”

“No. I like not going anywhere. It's nice to feel like I belong to one place. I want to savor this.”

Luhan kind of knows what he means, but then again he doesn't. He's always belonged to one place and there's only so much savoring you can do when you've only known a single house and a single town your whole life.

Jongdae returns the first month of summer and promptly drags Luhan on his first ever cross-state road trip. They spend three weeks seeing the sights and living out of suitcases and dingy motels, and Luhan gets a glimpse of the world and he kind of enjoys it. 

With Jongdae around on campus the next semester, Luhan spends less time at the library study table, although the few times he goes around, there Minseok still sits. He no longer brings two coffees though, something Luhan notices with a jolt one day when he sits down to 'study'. He's actually there to find out how Minseok is doing and how his semester is going, but since that time when they had lunch together, Minseok has retreated a little more into himself. He's still looking happier than last year, but there's something forlorn on his face when Minseok looks at him and he thinks Luhan doesn't notice. It's a strange feeling, being side-eyed like this, but Luhan shrugs it off.

He spends most of his free time hanging out with his new and once-again best friend Jongdae, playing games, going for drives, eating tons of junk food, and listening to Jongdae recount tales from his travels around the world. It's all very exciting, and not just the idea of living overseas and seeing fabulous vistas, but the idea of having even the opportunity to go places. To Jongdae he never cared where they went, he just loved finding new spots to live and new things to do and new people to meet. By the winter break it's already clear to Luhan that Jongdae's starting to get antsy again, more than just a dash of wanderlust still in his veins. 

The two of them run into Minseok again at the sandwich place one week into the Christmas holidays. Just like the first time they met, Minseok looks startled. He's doubly anxious though now that Luhan hasn't come in alone. Luhan introduces his two friends, curious for a moment that he actually thinks of Minseok as a friend. They haven't really hung out before. They just do individual study and chat occasionally. It's funny though, how even that little connection means as much as it does to Luhan. He feels rather bad now that he's 'studied' much less than usual this semester.

“So you're Minseok,” says Jongdae with an appraising look.

“Yes? How long have you known Luhan?” Minseok asks. Luhan may have mentioned to him once about his old friend Jongdae.

“Since we were kids!” Jongdae answers. “Well, off and on. Actually I disappeared after the eighth grade, but luckily for me Luhan was still waiting around with enough friends slots open for me to ease back in.” He laughs and hugs Luhan heavily around the neck. Luhan rocks with the moment and smiles, but the chuckle he knows he should add to this statement doesn't come out. He shirks the arm around his shoulder and shoves Jongdae unceremoniously back into his chair.

“What about you, Minseok?” Jongdae recovers quickly. “Have you always lived around here or did you just come for college?”

“Just for college a year ago. It's the first time in a few years I've been in one place for so long. And if I stay for the full four years, then the longest I've ever been in one place by far.”

“You like living around here?”

“Yes,” says Minseok with a little half-glance at Luhan.

It's a measure of Luhan's people-reading skills when he judges that the two are definitely not destined to be friends. Jongdae frowns the longer Minseok talks. The happy way his study buddy anticipates living in one place for four years does not compute with the accomplished world-traveler.

“Oh, well,” says Jongdae. “Hey, but Luhan's nicely grounded and all that. I'm sure you two will be best buds and never leave this crazy little town.”

Luhan kind of resents that statement, but Minseok looks between them oddly and so Luhan doesn't push it.

By the middle of the next spring semester Jongdae is well into his paperwork for another study-abroad. Luhan stifles his sadness and readies himself for the departure of his friend, again. He's almost not even upset this time, knowing it's what makes Jongdae happy. He spends a lot more time with Minseok though, so by the time Jongdae's packing up his stuff to leave Luhan is fine and well, and Minseok is extra happy so who can really complain?

Things change for them over the summer. They both end up taking one summer course, and therefore both find themselves at the study table one afternoon, and they laugh at the coincidence. For the next few months Luhan manages to drag Minseok further and further out of his shell until Minseok learns to talk freely, and their lunch dates at the sandwich place happen intentionally more often than accidentally. 

“We should try some other place to eat one day,” Luhan suggests one week before the start of school.

“Why, what's wrong with this place?” Minseok asks.

“Nothing,” Luhan quips. “It's just that we always eat here. Like three times a week. What if it starts to get old and we start taking the food for granted, and one day it won't taste as cool. Don't you think people should change things up every now and then? Have a little variety?”

Minseok points at the menu with its dozens of meal combinations. “Isn't that enough variety for you?” His voice rumbles with a low-pitched kind of laugh that makes Luhan's stomach churn in a good way.

“That- that's not what I mean!” He laughs loudly in response. 

“Well, what? You want to try out the pizza place instead? I hear they boast fifty different kinds of toppings there. Is that variety enough for you? I think you can also get five types of iced tea. If you mix that with at least five different types of packaged sweeteners, there's even more variety. The combinations are endless!”

Luhan whines. “Okay, okay. Make fun of me.”

“Quit pouting. I suppose we can try some other place,” Minseok concedes.

“We don't have to... I just, thought maybe some place nice for a change.”

Minseok cocks an eyebrow. “Nice?”

“Yeah, like... a fancier restaurant. Italian or something...”

“How many broke college students eat fancy Italian food?”

“It was just a suggestion.”

A week later, to celebrate their first week as college juniors, Minseok relents and agrees to Italian food. They treat the matter very casually, especially once Luhan realizes that going out for a fancy dinner on a Friday night could be construed as a date, and he's not sure a date is what Minseok agreed to. It's just food, Luhan repeats to himself. It just happens to be a finer quality of food and besides, everyone has to eat.

Minseok also comes casually prepared at their agreed-upon spot, neither making a big deal out of it until they are seated and Minseok proceeds to explain mathematically all the course combinations Luhan could order and still manage to eat something different.

“Endless possibilities!” he concludes. “If we were to come here every day even!”

“Should we?” Luhan laughs. “Come all the time? We'd be dead broke but at least we'll die happy and well-fed.” They proceed to send each other into a fit of giggles which only ends with the appearance of their waiter.

He's a stern-looking youth by the name of Zitao and once he catches sight of the customers swallowing back their laughter, Luhan even pinching Minseok in fleshy part of his arm to get the other to quit, Zitao unfurls a unique kind charm. He's all smiles and professionalism, and he treats the meal like it's a very solemn but romantic affair, actually concluding that the two must be on a date. Luhan and Minseok let him talk them into a two-person entrée with four courses, and he looks very put-out when they refuse a bottle of wine, but the way they devour the chocolate dessert at the end almost makes up for it. 

They tip him well, because they can afford to do this for one night at least, and Zitao is so charmed that he offers to take a picture of them beside the fountain in the entryway.

“Here give me your phones, and you can pose over there. The lighting is especially nice from this angle.” He juggles each of their phones while Luhan steps up next to Minseok and places his hand gingerly around his waist. Minseok startles, but calms down a second later and they smile for the camera.

“Wow, you two are so cute.” Zitao looks delighted at the shot, and so Luhan steps even closer. 

“Psst,” Luhan whispers in his ear. “Put your hand around my back. It'll make him happy, come on.”

Minseok follows the instruction well, and their waiter preens happily.

“Why are we doing this again?” Minseok whispers back while Zitao changes phones. 

“Because we're cute apparently. Who wouldn't want to capture us like this?” 

Zitao takes the shot while Luhan's breath still tickles Minseok's ear, and Luhan feels Minseok shiver almost imperceptibly. 

“Last one!” Zitao warns. Right as the camera is about to go off Luhan fakes one last picture and presses his lips to Minseok's cheek cutely. His 'date' holds the pose without flinching this time, and then Luhan is off to collect their phones.

“So... how was that for adventure?” Minseok asks when they're outside of the restaurant and standing at the halfway point between their two parked cars. 

“Great. We should do it again!” Luhan exclaims.

“Really?”

“Well, maybe not here very often but... it was fun, hanging out with you...” Luhan smiles but then stares at the ground, immensely curious about Minseok's footwear because it's a whole lot easier to figure out than the expression on Minseok's face.

“I... I'd like that,” Minseok says. “So, see you Monday at our table?”

“Yeah... at our table. I'd like that.”

By the middle of their third fall semester, there is a whole lot less studying going around at the table, and a lot more discussion, fun and amusement. Minseok starts bringing two coffees every day, and eventually Luhan persuades him that he should have to pull his own weight some days, so every other week Luhan brings the coffees.

One perilous Thursday afternoon before an important test for Minseok, they are interrupted by a group of freshman who noisily take over a nearby table. Nothing Luhan says seems to penetrate their thick-skulled heads and Minseok is starting to panic.

“Can we move, please? I can't concentrate.”

“There's nowhere else. Every place is full and this is already the quietest room in the building,” Luhan tries to explain.

“B-but...” Minseok's bottom lip quivers in frustration and he wrinkles his face irritably. “I-I can't...”

“Alright then,” Luhan cuts him off, “Why don't you come home with me? It's quiet and nobody will bother you. Except for me, of course.” He winks, and the wrinkles in Minseok's face actually increase in number. It takes another five minutes of persuasion for Minseok to give in and Luhan helps him pack his things.

Luhan has never really loved his house. It's the same building he's always lived in, and his parents are the same people he's always lived with. As an adult now, they leave him pretty much alone when he comes home, anxious not to crowd him and drive him away, and while some days that can be kind of weird - especially when he feels the house is too quiet - today it's actually nice. No one interrogates him for bringing home an anxious wreck of a student even though he's definitely not in the habit of bringing home boys, fellow students or otherwise.

“Your room is really nice,” Minseok says when they enter it. Luhan hastily shoves a pile of junk off of his desk, the better for Minseok to spread his stuff out. 

“It's okay. I've never known anything different.”

“Wow, really? That's kind of cool.”

“Is it?” Luhan doesn't really think so anymore. 

“Yeah. You've never had to pack up and relocate. And you have so much stuff, it would suck if you ever had to.”

“I don't know. I guess I've just collected a lot of junk. If I were to ever leave I guess I'd probably leave most of it here. My parents aren't going anywhere any time soon.”

Minseok starts unpacking his books and notebooks, and Luhan watches him frown just slightly. “Why would you leave though?” Minseok asks.

“Huh? Why not?”

“I mean, what would you leave for? With your degree there are so many jobs in this town. You've basically got it made.”

Luhan thinks they may not be seeing eye to eye for the first time ever. “I don't know... maybe I want to travel? Go somewhere different? It would be a change at least.”

Minseok decides to side-swipe that discussion. “If you didn't though, would you ever still live in the area and just move out of this house?”

“For what?”

Minseok shrugs. “I don't know. If you got married ever or something...” He pauses strategically and Luhan is at a loss for words. Meanwhile, Minseok continues like he hadn't stopped. “I mean, what girl would want to move in and live with her in-laws. Surely you'd move out and get your own place? Even if you didn't want to move far away?”

Luhan sits on his bed and swallows as casually as he can. Surely Minseok knows what he's secretly asking, and surely Luhan knows how to answer. He just isn't sure if he wants to. His tongue is caught in the back of his throat though at all the possibilities. In some way, moving out of town and out of state would be an easier solution than this.

“I- I probably wouldn't have that issue with a girl, ever...”

Minseok slowly blinks at him over the top of his notebook. “Oh. Okay then.” He sits down to study, and Luhan watches him work while pretending to study on his own. A few hours later he brews a less-than-stellar pot of coffee for his friend, and a few hours after that his mother sneaks in a few plates of dinner for them to eat, and the night goes on while they work mostly in silence. Minseok takes over his computer to draw up complicated study guides and Luhan starts reading a novel. 

He gives up on the book halfway through the third chapter and decides to doze instead. He wakes up when it's already dark outside and the clock reads 11:03 pm and Minseok's finger is poking him in the side with deliberate, sharp jabs.

“Hey. Hey, Luhan.”

“Hmmmm?” Luhan grunts.

“It's late, and I forgot, but you drove me here.”

“Hmmm.”

“So... unless you want me to bunk with you, can you drive me home?”

“Hmm.”

The shadow over him retreats as Minseok stands up and walks away. A minute later, or it could be thirty - Luhan can't tell how long anymore - Minseok returns and gives him one hearty push to scoot him over in the bed. Luhan whines but Minseok is having none of that. “You called it. Now move over.” The bed dips and Minseok crawls in beside him, and that's the last thing Luhan remembers. 

He wakes up in the morning still fully dressed and his jeans feel uncomfortable as they get stuck in the twist of sheets, but Minseok is sharing his pillow wearing only a shirt and boxers and when Luhan rolls over, he tucks an arm around Minseok's waist and pulls him close.

Minseok stirs and yawns a few minutes later at the sound of his phone alarm going off. He tries to pull away but Luhan clamps down tight.

“Uhm, Luhan?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can you let me go now?”

“No,” Luhan drawls sleepily. Minseok lays back seemingly in defeat. Then he tries it again, manages to sit up, but the result is the same in that he can't stand up.

“So you're not going to let me go?”

“Nope.”

“I have a test today. Why not?”

“Because I like having you right here.” If Luhan wasn't half asleep he probably wouldn't have said it. But the words are out and he can't take them back now, and anyways, Minseok doesn't look so scandalized. 

“If I promise not to run away, will you let me go for now?”

“Maybe...”

“And will you get up yourself?”

“Maybe...”

“And will you drive me back to school?”

Luhan shuts his eyes and frowns deeply. “You drive a hard bargain Kim Minseok. But okay, fine... As long as you know where you belong. Deal?”

A hand brushes through Luhan's messy bed hair and a resigned snort echoes from Minseok's chest. “Deal.” The word comes out a whole lot softer than Luhan would expect from someone he's got caged. It's a sweet word though, one that will make his heart beat and burn for the rest of the day and well beyond.

The rest of their third year goes by in a flash. If Luhan and Minseok spent a lot of time together the year before, this year they've doubled it. They've doubled the skinship too. Their chairs are positioned closer together, they walk arm in arm, or arm to waist, or arm to shoulder. Every now and then they splurge and visit Zitao at the Italian restaurant where he practices taking more and more compromising pictures of them kissing in front of the statue. 

They keep their study table for nostalgia's sake, and also because to Minseok it's like his second home and he enjoys the comfort and familiarity it brings. It's also public enough to ward of Luhan's advances, giving Minseok the ability to actually get some studying done. When they're not in the library they're in Luhan's room doing a mixture of individual study and certain specific studies of each other. 

“This is the best feeling,” Minseok says after one particularly invigorating study. They're lying in a tangle of arms and legs and mostly nude, breathing together softly as they enjoy the last few minutes together before sleep claims them both.

“What is?” Luhan asks warmly.

“This. Isn't it the best? It's cozy and warm and we don't have anything to do tomorrow except lay around and be bums, for a change.” Tomorrow is the start of another summer holiday and neither is signed up for a summer course. 

Luhan hums. “It is the best.”

“It is,” Minseok repeats, his voice drifting off into dreamland. “I don't ever want to move from this place.”

“From this spot?” Luhan asks sleepily. “It'll be kind of hard to eat or go to the bathroom or even go back to school next year if you never get out of bed.”

“Mmmm, that's not what I mean...”

“What do you-” Luhan yawns, “mean then?”

“Just... I dunno... sleepy...”

“Sleep then.” Luhan finds and pats his head and they both drift off into sleep.

Jongdae returns the next week with more great travel adventures, which he recounts to an eager Luhan and not so eager Minseok. He doesn't stay for long. He's only back to complete one last class and pick up his diploma. He works himself like a dog for the first summer semester, if just so he can be done that much faster and then he's off to follow his family again and work an overseas internship. 

Minseok finds him exhausting, and Luhan tries his hardest to bridge the divide. He fails eventually, but Minseok is more important and Jongdae is just going to be gone again. Minseok sighs with relief the day Jongdae flies away, and Luhan watches wistfully as he goes. Later that night Minseok gets the courage to ask him something.

“Do you wish that was you?”

“Hmm?” Luhan doesn't know what he's asking.

“Like Jongdae.”

“Why would I wish I was Jongdae? I have an infinitely better life than Jongdae.” Luhan believes it too.

“I don't mean it like that. I mean, going places, moving places, striking out and starting over. You've never gone anywhere. It's only natural, I guess, to wish you could do something new.”

“Oh.”

The fact that he can't answer with anything more 'Oh' depresses Minseok somehow. Minseok, the boy who was shuffled around between one parent to another parent, between grandparents and aunts and uncles and family friends from the time he was a toddler till the day he went to college. 

“I mean, it would be nice to go somewhere new. I suppose it would be fun...”

“It doesn't matter. I didn't mean to upset you,” Minseok says quickly.

“You- you didn't upset me.” If anything, Luhan upset Minseok and that definitely wasn't okay. He wants to fix it, to revise what he said, to persuade Minseok that he never wants to live a life without him it, but Minseok is through talking and doesn't want to hear anymore. He goes home and spends the night uncharacteristically in his apartment, and the next day they reunite and act like none of that conversation ever happened. Luhan doesn't bring it up again, but as his career advisors start asking the harder questions about what Luhan wants to do after he graduates in a year, Luhan can't help but think how exciting it would be to leave once and for all. To say farewell to everything he's ever known and start over somewhere else. It would be a goodbye, but more or less like a 'see you later' and perhaps he would return again, stronger, wiser, rejuvenated.

What he can't reconcile is the part of him that wants Minseok to come wherever he goes. Because he knows Minseok wants nothing more than to dig roots and stay put, and Luhan is scared the test the bonds of their relationship - if he could beg for him to come with him, or if Minseok will just watch him walk away. 

He doesn't want to walk away though, not by himself. He also doesn't want to stay home. After twenty-one years he's finally feeling restless and he wants a change of scenery. He doesn't necessarily need to go abroad either. He's not a wild-child like Jongdae is. Any old town that's not here will do. A few hours away, ten hours away, just some place fresh that'll force him to challenge himself.

Everything about the following semester - everything not Minseok, that is - bothers him. He goes to the same grocery store that he's always known, puts gas in his car at the same station he's driven past since the day he could drive, eats at the same fast food places that haven't moved or renovated in fifteen years, and his house and his room haven't changed in about the same amount of time. He buys a new bed quilt to satisfy his need of change, a lovely green color that complement's Minseok's eyes. 

He thinks about just getting an apartment and asking Minseok to move in with him, the more he agonizes over everything, the less he thinks that will appease him. Somewhere between moving to Hawaii and moving ten minutes away. Not so far, but not so close. Luhan is ultimately a boring individual, but he strives to strike at the middle ground.

He gets a weird call around Christmas this year from another long lost friend. Kris is getting married and he wants Luhan for a groomsman. 

He invites Minseok, but his boyfriend declines and so it's alone and with a heavy heart that Luhan boards a plane by himself. He hasn't seen Kris in over three years, and they only talk online or on the phone once every few months. The preparations for Kris' shotgun wedding to a gorgeous and petite woman keeps them pretty busy. Luhan is rushed around by Kris' best man Suho getting fitted for a tux, and when he's not busy acting like a friend and fawning over Kris, he's being ordered around by a troupe of busy-body bridesmaids setting up decorations or moving furniture. He gets barely any time to think about or even call his boyfriend back at home.

The night before the wedding at the bachelor party Kris gets raving drunk. 

“You know I missed you, buddy!” He practically cries, slurring his words

“Yeah, yeah, me too.” Luhan tries to support his weight under Kris's heavy hug. Suho, Kris' replacement best friend he made in college, helps to lug the guy off of him and prop him up in a chair.

“You should-come-around-more-often!”

“Yeah... I should,” Luhan agrees politely. He thinks of Minseok and wishes he was home.

“Hey, I know you're gonna graduate soon. Come out here!”

“What?”

“Yeah, come out here. I think I could find you a job. Pay's awesome too. Send a resume! I promise I'll put in a good word for you.”

Kris' offer gets side-tracked when more friends arrive with more booze and Luhan doesn't inquire again. The rest of his evening is spent helping Suho keep the groom from getting too whacked up, and then in the morning trying to cure his hangover. The wedding is fine and lovely and goes off without a hitch, but Luhan declines the family's offer to stay longer and vacation at their ranch home for the holidays. He takes the next flight home, determined to get back to the comfort that is Minseok's embrace.

His boyfriend only asks the barest details of Luhan's trip, and so Luhan only tells him the most minimal, boring details. He skips Kris' offer entirely, although several weeks later Kris calls him up, home from his honeymoon, and while sober he repeats the invitation and gives Luhan the whole attractive spiel. 

“I'll think about it. Thanks,” is all Luhan agrees to.

Minseok is extra clingy during their last semester together. Luhan supposes it's because he thinks Luhan is going to leave soon, and he does nothing to either confirm or deny his suspicions. He just holds on tighter both at night and during the day. They aid each other during test weeks and hang out together when they're less busy. Minseok doesn't ask to go to their old favorite sandwich shop anymore, and Luhan is secretly grateful, but they do hang on to their library table whenever possible, and this one Luhan doesn't mind. 

Things come to a head with just a month and a half left of their undergraduate careers. 

“You want to go somewhere, don't you?” Minseok asks him once between study sessions. 

“What?” Luhan isn't prepared for this conversation.

“After this summer. You want to move somewhere new, begin again, don't you?”

“I don't want to go anywhere without you, actually.”

Minseok sighs and smiles. “That's silly. You should do whatever you want to do.” Luhan remains silent, terrified of whatever he's getting at. “You want to move to where Kris is, don't you?” 

“Huh?” Now this is something he didn't anticipate.

“I didn't mean to... but I happened to read an incoming text the other day... asking if you'd thought about it...”

“Oh.”

“You're thinking about it, aren't you?”

How to broach this... “I did.”

Minseok deflates a little, and it nearly breaks Luhan's heart. “Okay,” he says with a small voice.

“I mean, I did... already. Past tense.”

Minseok picks his head up again. “What?”

“I mean, I don't want to move there... I want to do something, go somewhere, yes... but if I take the job Kris' family is offering, it kind of feels like cheating. Instead of a challenge, just an easy route... I want-”

“So you're still going somewhere,” Minseok interrupts him.

“Maybe...” Luhan says slowly, softly.

“But...” Minseok looks like he wants to cry. He doesn't though. He holds it in bravely. “But, why?”

Luhan knows the answer to that. Why not. Why not try something new, someplace new. It's not about reinventing himself. He's not running from anything. All he knows is that there might be something out there to experience, and Luhan's never experienced anything. He's always lived at home, always had a cushy place to fall back on, always had options and help and, if he's being super honest with himself, he's tired of always being the person left behind. Tired of friends moving away, of acquaintances moving away. He's just the guy that people come back to visit, if they remember him at all.

Minseok complicates everything, because Minseok just wants a place to call home. 

But Luhan wants Minseok to call him home.

Maybe they're not tied together; maybe they haven't considered a concrete future. And maybe that's the problem. 

“Minseok... let's do something... together... do you want to?”

“What?” Minseok squeaks. 

“I know... I know you're tired of moving around. You're always moving places, here there and everywhere... but, you're always going by yourself. You have me now though... I want to go with you. Let's do it together.”

Minseok sits very still and rearranges some of his notebooks. “Go where?”

“Anywhere. An hour away. Two hours away. Somewhere where it's just us and people will only know us by who we are together. Wanna do it?”

He leaves Minseok to think about it, namely because Minseok refuses to answer him outright, but he also doesn't break up with Luhan, for which Luhan is more than grateful for because he doesn't want Minseok to be the next person who leaves his life. Little victories, because a Minseok who is still thinking about it is a Minseok who hasn't rejected him yet.

Another few weeks, and more deadlines pass - times where Luhan could be deciding what he wants to do and where he wants to go. He has a few ideas and none of them are radical decisions, but they are options that border between the comfortable and the challenging, and that's all Luhan kind of wants in life. That plus Minseok. 

He takes a chance and tells him these things. They don't go to the Italian restaurant because Luhan doesn't want to spoil the place if Minseok says no. He doesn't want to burn every bridge after all. He takes him to the pizza place, neutral territory which they both like and it has just the right amount of ambience for Luhan to put forth his present.

Minseok's eyes widen when he pulls out the little jewelry box, and Luhan kind of freaks out when he thinks Minseok might misconstrue its contents.

“Oh! It's not a ring! Just so you know. But, I just wanted to give you something... meaningful. It's not a ring though! Unless...” Luhan's anxiety actually worsens. “Unless you wanted one of those, in which case...”

Minseok actually chuckles and laughs at Luhan's pain. He opens up the tiny box with a curious sort of delight, revealing a pair of earrings. Just one pair of earrings. “What is this for, Lu? Couple earrings?”

“Yes,” Luhan says, his face turning red. “One for you... one for me...” They're simple things, silver medallions smaller than the size of Luhan's pinky nail with a black-rimmed outline.

“But... I don't have pierced ears.”

Luhan puts on his best puppy face. “Don't you want to pierce your ears though?”

“And why would I do that?” Minseok teases. At least Luhan hopes he's only teasing.

“Because... you love me and you want to do everything with me?” 

Minseok laughs. There's uncertainty on his face and a whole lot of indecision, but it isn't anything to do with what he thinks about Luhan, he hopes.

“Everything? Everything, huh? So... when I'm getting my ears pierced and I see blood and I puke all over you, that kind of everything?”

“Yes,” Luhan says quickly, before Minseok changes his mind.

“Everything... like when I want to go grab a sandwich at my favorite place one last time?”

“I'd eat a sandwich.” 

“Everything... as in, you having to walk me through packing up all my stuff again and moving somewhere else and when I freak out and have to start from scratch, you'll be there to hold my hand through it all.”

“Even that. Wait, especially that.” Luhan's heart starts to strum. “Do you mean it?”

Minseok represses a shy little smile and twirls the box with the earrings between his fingers. “I might regret it some day. But, I guess it's a chance I'm willing to take.”

Luhan grins, wider than he has in months because he's been so scared of the future, and now it seems stupid that he lost so much sleep over it. He should have had a little faith in Minseok, a little faith in himself. He's now going to be allowed to take a chance on them, to take Minseok and himself away from everything Luhan knows as they dip their toes into something new and life-changing.

“How soon can I persuade you to pierce your ears?” Luhan asks, and Minseok takes his hand and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> My first cross-post from AFF/LJ. Bear with me please, and thank you for reading.


End file.
